


Garden of Dancing Bees, by Castiel Novak

by BleedingInk



Series: Colorful Canvasses and Spirited Drinks [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Art Gallery Owner Castiel, Balthazar Playing Matchmaker, Endgame Megstiel, F/M, First Date, Implied Sexual Content, Kissing, Liqour Store, Store Owner Meg, Valentine's Day, art gallery, past Destiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 08:00:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13677561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BleedingInk/pseuds/BleedingInk
Summary: Two months after his disastrous break-up, Castiel thinks he's ready to ask Meg out on a date.





	Garden of Dancing Bees, by Castiel Novak

_It shouldn’t be so difficult._

Castiel repeated this to himself in the mirror for several minutes after parking his car in front of Meg’s store. It shouldn’t be difficult at all. He had put on cologne, straightened his tie and somehow managed to squash his hair enough that it looked less messy than usual. He had brought flowers and a card. He had spent a good half hour wondering if bringing chocolates too would be a good idea, but he had decided it was better to wait until she told him if she liked chocolates or not. But other than that, he was ready, he had prepared for this. He had even practiced in his mind what he was going to say and how he was going to say it.

It shouldn’t have been so difficult.

And yet, he couldn’t bring himself to get out of his car.

Meg and him were on that weird stage of a relationship when they weren’t exactly friends, but they were familiar enough with each other that they could joke and flirt whenever he showed up at her store. After the New Year’s Eve fiasco, he was absolutely sure that she would run in the opposite direction and never talk to him again. He wouldn’t have blamed her if she did, but she had not only provided him with her phone number, she also still welcomed him with the same smile whenever he showed up at her store.

So they texted. And they joked. And they flirted. And everything seemed exactly as it should be, but Meg hadn’t mentioned again if she would be open to going on a date with him. Maybe because she thought there was no need to repeat herself after she had already indicated what her answer would be. Maybe she had changed her mind and she was waiting for him to bring it up before she could let him down gently.

Or maybe, and this was a very real possibility… the events that had transpired the previous year were still coloring his perception.

“The previous year” was kind of a pretentious way of putting it. They were in mid-February. He and Dean, his ex, had broken up right after Christmas. It hadn’t been two months, and Castiel was already planning on asking someone else out. It was very much his usual M. O. He had been a serial monogamist his entire life, going from relationships that lasted months or, in some cases, years, and always presuming the other person would be the one he’d finally spend the rest of his life with.

But he hadn’t such luck yet, and maybe, instead of wondering what Meg would say, he should be taking this time for himself, examining what had failed, and becoming a more balanced and healthy human being.

Except that was what he had done in college. He was already a balanced person. He had a job that he loved, he had a house and a cat; he was in a good place in his life. If he could only find someone to share that life with, it would be perfect.

He had thought Dean was that person, even though they had dated for only eight months, but…

It was best not to think about that. He shook his head and gave himself one last reassuring look in his mirror. He picked up the flowers from the passenger’s seat and marched towards the liquor store.

Kevin, the college boy that worked there part time, was cleaning the floor and waved his hand at Castiel when he walked in. He went to the same college where Castiel taught, but he wasn’t on any of his courses. Castiel waved back and took a deep breath as he approached the counter.

His heart sank a little. Meg wasn’t there. Instead, a short redheaded girl with a pixie haircut welcomed him with a smile.

“How can I help you?”

“Umh…” Castiel started, but before he could continue, Kevin approached the counter carrying his bucket and mop.

“He’s the boss’ boyfriend,” he informed the girl.

“Oh!” she said, her eyes darting to the flowers in Castiel’s hands. “She’s in the back. I’ll go call her.”

“I’m not…” Castiel started protesting, but the girl had already turned heel and headed for the door marked “Employees Only”.

“Sorry about that, Professor Novak,” Kevin said. “Charlie just started today.”

“That’s… fine, but I’m not…” Castiel began again, but he didn’t have time to elaborate further.

Meg came out and flashed her usual smirk at him.

“Well, hello, there stranger. I missed you last week.”

Castiel was astounded. Charlie and Kevin’s chat had completely distracted him and now he couldn’t remember the speech he had prepared to ask Meg out, but on top of that, Meg looked gorgeous. She was a gorgeous woman, of course, but that day she had applied a new shade of lipstick and instead of the practical messy bun that she normally kept her hair in, she had let in fall free on her shoulders, in loose dark curls that framed her round face.

It took him a second or two to realize he was standing there with the flowers in his hand, like an idiot, so he swallowed and forced himself to smile back.

“Hello, Meg. I… uh…”

“Are those for me?” Meg asked, pointing at the flowers.

“Y-yes…” Castiel stuttered and then stopped himself. “Uh… can we talk alone?”

Meg threw a glance at her employees, who were both leaning in the counter and staring at them as if they were a very interesting sight.

“Oh, don’t mind us,” Charlie said.

“You won’t even notice we’re here!” Kevin added.

Meg rolled her eyes and decidedly walked to Castiel to grab him by the shoulder.

“Hold the fort for five minutes,” she instructed them as she guided Castiel towards the door.

The cold air of the winter cut inside of Castiel’s lungs, but it did wonders to clear his mind. He could do this. He was a thirty-six year old man. He had no reason to be acting like a flustered teenage boy when asking someone out. And besides, Meg was hugging herself and rubbing her arms because she hadn’t brought a jacket with her outside. He would never forgive himself if she caught a cold because of him, so he had to do it quick.

He extended the bouquet for her.

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” he told her.

Meg looked at the flowers and let out a laugh. It was adorable the way she threw her head back when she did that.

“See, this is exactly the reason Kevin thinks you’re my boyfriend,” she commented. “Oh, you put a card on it and everything!”

He frowned a little at her reaction. It wasn’t that he was expecting her to swoon and fall on his arm, but she seemed entirely too amused while she opened the card with a smiling bee on the front and read the inside out loud:

“ _You’re sweet as honey! Will you ‘bee’ my Valentine?_ ” She let out another chuckle. “Cute.”

“Really? You liked it?” Castiel asked, tilting his head.

Meg looked up at him and opened her mouth. It was as if for a second or two, she considered lying to him, but she changed her mind almost immediately:

“I mean, don’t get me wrong. I appreciate the gesture, but I’m not a flowers and chocolate kinda gal.”

Castiel was ever so relieved that he didn’t buy the chocolates after all.

“What kind of gal are you, then?”

She smiled again, so at least he hadn’t made an irremediable mistake.

“The pizza and beer kind,” she said, gesturing towards her store, as if that explained it. Her smile faltered a little bit. “I mean, I understand you’re like this super cultured guy with your art gallery and…”

“No,” Castiel interrupted her. “It’s good that you’re telling me this. That way I can plan a date that you can enjoy too.”

It took a second for his brain to catch up on the fact he had talked as if Meg had already accepted being his date. He was about to apologize, but Meg chuckled.

“That was real smooth. So when are we going on this date of yours?”

Castiel decided to continue as if he had absolutely planned to do that.

“I… I was thinking Friday.”

“Okay. Eight o’clock?”

“Yes, that’s perfect.” Castiel wondered why his face felt so strange, but then he realized he was smiling wider than he had in a really long time. “We can arrange the details over the phone.”

“You know, you could’ve just said you’ll text me,” Meg pointed out. “That would have made it sound less like I’m some sort of doctor appointment you’re dreading to go to.”

Castiel cleared his throat and sank his hands in his pocket. It was a twitch he had since he was a kid when he felt embarrassed. As soon as he realized, however, he took them back out let them hanged at the sides of his body. If Meg had noticed it, she didn’t say anything about it.

“Very well, then. I’ll text you.”

“I’ll be waiting,” Meg said. She looked over her shoulder and let out an exasperated sigh. “Make sure you do it after closing hours, though.”

Castiel followed her gaze. Charlie and Kevin were standing right behind the window’s glass, looking at them through the red letters that signaled the store’s name. As soon as they noticed they had been caught spying, they promptly retreated back inside. Castiel could almost imagine them whistling a distracted melody innocently.

Meg shook her head, as if she couldn’t believe them, and said goodbye to Castiel before going back into the store.

So… that had been easy.

Castiel told himself that while he walked back to his car. It had been easy, it had felt great.

He closed the door behind him and wondered why the hell he felt like his stomach had become one big nervous knot despite it.

 

* * *

 

It took him Castiel a couple of hours to figure out the reason he didn’t feel as confident about this whole ordeal was that up until this point, his go to plan had always been to take his date to an elegant restaurant he knew, the same fancy place he made his art deals or where he went with other professors to discuss their classes and other topics. That just wouldn’t do for the more informal type of date that Meg had indicated she preferred.

The problem was, the same way Castiel didn’t know how to do “casual”, he didn’t know how to do “informal”.

His first thought was taking her to the movies, but he didn’t know which genre she liked and he didn’t want to ask point blank because that might have ruined the surprise. Then again, he wasn’t sure he was planning a surprise date. Maybe the best would be to invite Meg over at his place, order a pizza and see what movie they could find in the Netflix catalogue. But after thinking it over for a while, he realized that was verging into the realm of _too_ informal. They had been sort-of-friends for almost a year now, but he didn’t want to make her uncomfortable by moving too fast. That was a mistake he had made in the past, several times and even at that point…

“You’re second-guessing yourself too much, darling,” Balthazar told him on the phone. “Dear Dean-o really did a number on your head, but you’re gonna have to get over it sooner or later.”

Castiel hit his head on the table, holding his cellphone to his ear still. His best friend and business partner was right, of course, but if he admitted out loud, he would never hear the end of it.

“I don’t know, Balthazar. Maybe it’s still too soon,” he argued instead. “I’m sure Meg won’t be mad if I call to ask her for a rain-check…”

“You’re most certainly not going to do that!” Balthazar interrupted him. “You said you had your eye on this girl before you even met Dean, right?”

“I… it wasn’t exactly like that. I liked her, I just never got around to ask her out and now I’m afraid…”

“Fear shouldn’t be in your vocabulary, Castiel,” Balthazar cut him off again. “This is a time-sensitive situation. You’re lucky she hadn’t started dating anybody by the time Dean revealed his true colors and you’re lucky she said yes now. If you keep postponing it, you don’t know if someone else might snatch her from right underneath your nose.”

“She’s not some sort of pastry, Balthazar,” Castiel groaned. But his friend was absolutely right: he couldn’t keep hesitating. “I just… Meg has already seen me at one of my lowest points and I don’t know…”

“Exactly, and she still thinks your pathetic ass is worth dating!” Balthazar said. “Now you have to show her your finest point so she will realize you’re worth keeping around.”

Castiel pinched the bridge of his nose. He really appreciated Balthazar’s encouraging words, but he still didn’t know what to do about this date…

“Listen to me, there’s a bar near the gallery,” Balthazar said, as if he had read Castiel’s mind. “It’s a pretty calm scene, cozy. You can have a lovely conversation and some drinks…”

“She has a liquor store, Balthazar. Do you really thinks she wants to go to a place that sells booze?”

“Well, if you don’t want my advice, then why did you call me in the first place?”

His tone sounded rightfully irritated. Castiel forced himself to breath deep.

“I’m sorry. You’re right. I’m overthinking this. What’s the bar’s address?”

“Now we’re talking!” Balthazar laughed in his ear.

In retrospective, that should have been a sign.

Meg assured him she knew the direction of the place and that there was no need for him to pick her up, even though he offered. Castiel didn’t take it personally. After all, it was the first time they would interact outside of her comfort zone in the store and outside the virtual exchanges they sometimes had. She would want to have a means to escape if everything turned out horribly.

Castiel hushed those thoughts when he saw Meg’s taxi pull up in front of the bar. Like Balthazar had said, he needed to stop being so negative.

And it was really hard to stay negative when Meg exited the car and walked towards him. It was hard to think about anything, really. Usually, she was several inches shorter than him, but that night she had chosen to put on a pair of high heel boots that boosted her height up. She was also wearing tight jeans and a lovely purple coat. Once again, she had left her hair loose to fall on her shoulders.

Castiel’s breath caught in his throat when she planted herself in front of him and smiled wide.

“Well… here I am.”

“Yes. And right on time too,” Castiel said.

He hesitated on whether he should hug her or not or what was the appropriate thing to with his hand, but before he had time to look like too much of a doofus, Meg left a quick peck on his cheek.

“Shall we?” she asked, strolling towards the door as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

Castiel had to take a second or two to gather his thoughts before he followed her.

The inside of the bar was just as Balthazar had said: there was an appropriate crowd, not too lonely that it was unsettling and not too packed that they had to scream to talk. They found a table easily and ordered beer and appetizers to share.

“I don’t know if they serve pizza here, but I’ve heard good things about its nachos,” Castiel said. He didn’t mean to make it sound like he was apologizing, but it must have come out that way, because Meg gave him a little smirk.

“This isn’t your usual scene, huh?”

“Not really, no,” he admitted. He figured there was no point in denying it. “But, uh… I’m flexible.”

“That’s usually my line to get guys interested.”

The waitress put the appetizers in front of them and asked them to let her know if they needed something else. Castiel thanked her interruption, because he had no idea what to reply to that innuendo. Meg took a swig from her beer, throwing a glance at him as if she expected him to respond.

“Uh…” Castiel started, but then he cleared his throat. “So… there’s something I have been meaning to ask you.”

“Oh?” Meg arched an eyebrow and Castiel was once again at a loss for words.

Because there wasn’t just one thing he wanted to ask her. He wanted to know her birthday, her family story, her entire background. He wanted to know if she was an early riser or a night owl, how she liked her coffee and if she liked coffee at all. Was she looking for someone to share her life with like he was? Or was she just drifting through and letting life surprise her? Did she like sunsets? Did she like cats?

Why was she so kind to him even though she had seen what an emotional wreck he could be?

“Why a liquor store?” he asked instead.

Meg threw her head back and let out a hearty laugh.

“Are you always so intense about everything?” she said. “Seriously, I thought you were going to ask me for my life story for a moment there.”

Castiel forced himself to keep both his hands around his bottle of beer. Meg didn’t notice his awkwardness once more.

“Let’s see… one time my daddy told me: ‘ _Meggy, there are two things people are going to do for sure: drink and die’_. So it was either a liquor store or a funeral home.”

“Oh,” Castiel muttered. He struggled for something to say, but Meg moved backwards on the seat.

“That was a joke,” she clarified. “But yeah, it’s a safe business. In a college town like this, you’re never going to run out of kids looking somewhere to stock up for their next party.”

“Sounds logical.”

Meg took a swig of her beer, and slowly settled it down. When she set her eyes back on him, Castiel felt a shiver go down his spine.

“You’re not really feeling this, are you?” she asked, point-blank. “Do you even want to be on this date?”

Castiel stared at her, at a complete loss for something to say. He had been excessively nervous the entire evening, that was true, but he hoped that he was hiding it well enough that Meg wouldn’t notice.

“N-no,” he stammered when he realized he had been quiet for too long. “I mean, yes. I mean… I’m sorry.” He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose to gather his thoughts. “I didn’t… I didn’t mean to make you feel like I didn’t want to be here.”

Meg looked at him for a second or two before she lowered her eyes.

“Well, then…” she began, but she was unable to go on: Castiel’s cellphone started ringing. He picked it out of his pocket and rejected the call without even looking at the screen.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized again. But at least he had gained a few seconds to come up with something better to say: “I really like you and I really do want to be here. It’s just… I have never been good at this whole… dating thing. And on top of it, I’ve been feeling off lately.” He run a hand through his hair, messing it up again, completely forgetting about the hours he had spent to get it right in the first place. “I think…”

His phone rang again and this time he glared at it with irritation. Balthazar’s name flashed on the screen.

“Pick it up,” Meg encouraged him. “I’m gonna go to the bathroom. Excuse me.”

She got up and walked away. Castiel cursed internally before answering.

“What do you want?” he groaned.

“Am I interrupting something, darling?”

“As a matter of fact, you are,” Castiel said. “My date. That you insisted I should come to.”

“Oh, was that today? How’s it going?” Balthazar asked, but he clearly wasn’t interested in the answer because he followed it up by saying: “Listen, I don’t want you to get scared, but we have a bit of the crisis here at the gallery.”

Castiel immediately got scared. Well, not scared, but alert. He knew Balthazar well enough to know that he wouldn’t be calling if it wasn’t really important or if he could solve the problem by himself.

“What happened?”

The more Balthazar talked and explained the situation, the more Castiel wanted to bolt out of that bar and run to oversee what he was doing. But that would have been extremely rude, and he had already admitted to Meg that he wasn’t one hundred percent into this date. If he left now, he would ruin his chances with her forever…

Balthazar sensed his uneasiness.

“Why don’t you bring her along?” he suggested.

“I can’t do that…”

“Why not? She’ll get to see the gallery, we’ll fix this in fifteen minutes tops and you can go back to your beer and nachos before you even realize.”

“Uh…” Castiel muttered. Meg came back so silently he almost startled when she pull the chair back and sat down. “I’ll ask her.”

“Is it that bad?”

Castiel ended the call without answering to that.

“I’m really sorry about this,” he told Meg.

“Don’t be.” Meg sighed. “I should have known we were jumping the gun a little here.”

Castiel was a little lost for a moment. Then he realized he was talking about that entire date, and he felt so embarrassed that he had fucked everything up for her that this time he didn’t stop himself when the impulse to hide his hands on his pockets overcame him.

“I mean, I’m sorry about that too,” he said. “But, you see…”

He explained the situation to her, fully expecting her to tell him not to bother, that she could catch a taxi home and never talk to him again.

Meg said nothing of the sort.

“Okay, sure, I’ll go.”

“Really?” Castiel asked. Meg shrugged and offered no further explanation as to why she had made that decision. He figured he was in no position to probe her any further about it.

They split the check and he opened the door for her when they reached his car. He was aware it was an old-fashioned gesture, completely in line with the flowers and the cheesy Valentine’s Day card, but other than arching an eyebrow, Meg didn’t seem to have an opinion about that. She simply slid into the passenger’s seat and adjusted the seat belt quickly.

“So, this gallery of yours,” she said once Castiel had turned on the engine. “You’re always talking about it, you’re always buying fancy wine for your clients. But according to Kevin, you’re this super famous professor in campus too?”

“Yes.” Castiel figured that reply was too curt, so he elaborated: “The gallery is what I did first, though. Me and my partner, we built it from the ground up. And don’t get me wrong, I like my job as a professor. It pays the bills. But the gallery… that is what I love. Finding and fostering new talent and giving them a place where to display it it’s what really makes me happy. Sometimes we find someone whose art is so touching, so compelling, I just tell myself it’s criminal they don’t get to share it with others. So that’s why I keep the gallery even though I have my other job.”

He stopped at a semaphore, feeling the blood rushing to his cheeks. He shouldn’t be talking so much about himself. He should be trying to make Meg feel heard and…

Meg let out a chuckle. It wasn’t mocking or cruel. She just sounded… amused.

“You know, I think that is the longest you have talked about yourself ever since we met.”

“Well… I don’t think I’m a very interesting person.”

“And I think you’re selling yourself short,” Meg replied. “But hey, that’s just my opinion.”

Castiel glanced at her. Meg was looking outside of the window, with a smirk on her red lips. If there was another joke in there, he was definitely missing it.

Balthazar was waiting for them outside of the gallery, with a black coat and a grey scarf around his neck that he removed so he could talk when they approached him.

“Thank goodness. I already cut off the water and called a plumber, but I think we’re going to have… well, hello.” Balthazar interrupted his ramblings as soon as his eyes landed on Meg. He smiled wide at her. “I don’t think we have been properly introduced.”

“Hi, I’m Meg,” she said, offering his her hand. Instead of shaking it, though, Balthazar turned it around and gently left a peck over knuckles.

“ _Enchanté_. Castiel mentioned you were pretty, but he didn’t say you were this stunning.”

“Can we go back to the broken pipe?” Castiel interrupted him. “You know, the broken pipe in the building full of paintings that could get ruined.”

“Right, yes.” Balthazar cleared his throat and returned to his more professional time. “The plumber said he would be here in the morning, but I really think we might need to move some of the pieces down to the first floor.”

“How did you even see the leak?”

“I forgot my checkbook in the office and came to pick it up,” Balthazar explained. “Stroke of luck, really. It would’ve been a disaster if we’d come here on Monday only to find it all flooded, wouldn’t it?”

Castiel reckoned it would have and stopped questioning it.

Balthazar had already deactivated the alarm and turned on the lights. Castiel took off his coat and put it on the coat hanger, but when he turned around to offer to do the same thing for Meg, he found she had wandered off into the exhibition room.

She had never given any indication that she liked art and that’s why Castiel had avoided talking about it, even though it was his favorite topic. He didn’t want to bore her or make her think he was some sort of pretentious intellectual, like many of his colleagues were.

But now, as she stood in the middle of the room, looking around with glimmering eyes and the same soft smile as before, he thought maybe he had also made a mistake regarding that. He didn’t seem to get anything right when it came to her.

“Well, Cas… you’ve got a very pretty collection here,” she commented.

“Thank you. Some of these people were my students at some point,” Castiel said. He took pride in that, in finding the ones who really have a passion for their works and could create beautiful things, nursing their talent and watching them grown into the artists he knew they could be. It was also one of the reasons he was okay with splitting his time between his position at the school and the gallery.

He realized he had rambled about all of those things out loud while they climbed the stairs and went quiet immediately.

“Of course, that is all… I’m sure you’re not…”

“Castiel, if you say once again I shouldn’t be interested in that, I’m going to assume you don’t want me to be interested in you.”

Balthazar let out a laugh that he promptly disguised as a coughing fit when Castiel glared at him.

“The leak is right there in the corner,” Balthazar pointed.

He had already put down some of the pieces, so the leak was visible. The wall painting was wet and flaking off, with a humid stain expanding all the way down to a small pool of water on the floor. Castiel cringed at the idea of that touching any of the artworks, but Balthazar had already unhooked the ones that were closer to the water and put them against the drier walls.

“You’re right, we don’t know how far this goes,” Castiel told him. “We should move all of them to the first floor and lock some up in the office.”

“Good thinking, boss. Meg, darling, would you be so kind to help us?”

“You don’t have to,” Castiel said immediately. He couldn’t believe Balthazar’s nerve at asking that. “You can wait in the office if you prefer that…”

“I’ll help,” Meg interrupted him, rolling her sleeves up. “I carry boxes full of booze every day. And this way we can finish faster, right?”

“Great minds think alike!” Balthazar exclaimed, his confident grin growing wider. “Let’s get to it, shall we?”

Castiel tried not to look too sour about how these events were unfolding. He was stuck moving the individual, smaller paintings while Meg and Balthazar often collaborated carrying a bigger piece. He heard their chuckles and caught bits of their conversation when he by-passed them on the stairs, and maybe he was being a little paranoid, but he was almost certain they were talking about him all the time.

“… and you should ask him to show you his lock screen,” Balthazar was saying in one of those occasions. “He’ll talk for hours about his cat and how cute it is and how he chose to rescue him because black cats just don’t get adopted as easily…”

Castiel gritted his teeth. He loved _Poe_ , his cat, and he didn’t understand why Balthazar had to make fun of him for that.

Luckily, they were done moving the paintings soon enough. Castiel stared at the stain on the wall and touched it. The leak had to be pretty important if it felt humid on his fingers, even though Balthazar had assured him he cut off the water. Castiel would drop by the following day to talk to the plumber and make sure it would be fixed as soon as it was possible. They had an event in two weeks and everything had to be perfect.

With a grimace, he wondered if he would have the gall to walk into Meg’s Wine and Spirits and buy the alcohol there after tonight’s fiasco.

Meg and Balthazar were standing in front of a very large piece that occupied the entire west wall when he came downstairs.

“Please, touch it. Feel how he worked the texture,” Balthazar encouraged her. “This is one of our top artist’s best pieces and we couldn’t even think about being parted with it.”

“It’s beautiful,” Meg said, her fingers following the strokes on the canvass. “Who’s the artist?”

Castiel felt his face flushing again. She was looking at _Garden of Dancing Bees,_ one of his own paintings. It depicted several colorful flowers and bees working on them. He had tried to capture the patterns of their flight as accurately as possible, but so far no one with an expertise on bees had told him if he had.

His artist friends and colleagues, however, insisted it was very good and Castiel thought so, too, though he didn’t understand Balthazar’s insistence in keeping it in display.

His friend smiled at him before turning to Meg and pointing at the signature in the corner of the painting.

“Really?” Meg asked after reading. She glanced at Castiel with an unreadable expression. “You paint, too?”

“I… dabble,” Castiel admitted, sinking his hands in his pockets. He realized then he wasn’t wearing his trench coat, so he let them hang loose awkwardly at his sides.

“Isn’t he adorable when he’s modest?” Balthazar laughed.

Castiel wasn’t being modest. He really thought he had very little talent and his energy was better put in encouraging those who were better than him. He opened his mouth to explain that to them, but he figured it wasn’t that important, so he closed it again.

“Well, I think that is all,” Balthazar concluded, with a single clap to punctuate his sentence. “I’ll let you go back to your date now, darlings.”

“Actually, it’s kind of late,” Meg replied. “Do you mind giving me a ride home, Cas?”

Castiel bit the inside of his cheek. Of course she didn’t want to go back to drinking with him and having awkward conversations. Why did he ever think she would?

“Of course. Not a problem.”

Balthazar activated the alarm and closed the door behind them before saying goodbye to them.

“Well, it was a pleasure,” he told Meg, grabbing her hand to kiss it again. “I hope our paths cross again soon.”

“Hopefully,” Meg said, with a smile and a little shrug.

“Oh, and Cas.” Balthazar grabbed him by the forearm and pulled from him to get him closer and wink at him. “You have impeccable taste in partners, as always.”

“Thank you,” Castiel said, trying not to sound too bitter about it. “I’ll see you on Monday, Balthazar.”

Balthazar waved at them as they drove away.

“So he was a lot of fun,” Meg said.

“Yes, he’s always… charming.” Castiel hoped the bitterness in his voice wasn’t too obvious.

There was a short pause in which Meg tap her fingers against her knee, as if she was considering something.

“I gotta ask,” she said in the end. “Why the bees?”

“I’m sorry?”

“They were in the Valentine’s Day card you gave me, they were in that painting of yours – which was very beautiful, by the way. I’m no art expert, but I really liked that.”

“That means a lot to me,” Castiel said, sincerely. “And as for the bees, well… it’s kind of a long story, actually.”

And they were only a few blocks away from her apartment, so he didn’t think he would have the time to tell her. Meg tapped her fingers on her knee again.

“Why don’t you come upstairs and tell me about it?”

Castiel glanced as her for as long as he dared to take his eyes off the road, which must have been only a fraction of a second. But the genuine curiosity he saw on her face convinced him that maybe this was the point when the night finally started looking up.

The last time he had been in Meg’s small apartment, it was New Year’s Eve and he had been on the late stages of a grief induced bender over his break-up with Dean. He didn’t know which drunken logic had lead him to Meg’s store, but he was lucky that she was still there and that she didn’t have the heart to let him fall asleep in the middle of the cruel December cold. She had listened to all his sad ramblings and she had let him sleep on her couch. His memories of that night were blurry at best, but he did remember the small kitchen where they had awkwardly shared a coffee the following morning and the pot with a dying plant by the window.

That was the only change that he could perceive when he walked in Meg’s home: the plant was gone, probably unable to survive the winter months. But the place still smelled like coffee, as if that was a scent that impregnated every inch of it.

Meg carelessly tossed her coat in the couch, while Castiel took off his and hanged it from the back of the chair.

“You want a beer?” she offered. “Since we couldn’t finish the one we were having…”

Castiel accepted it and Meg sat down in front of him across the kitchen isle. She took one gulp and stared at him with a crooked eyebrow, indicating she was waiting for him to start his story. Castiel rubbed the back of his neck, awkwardly. This usually wasn’t a topic of conversation for him until the third or fourth date.

But then again, Meg had blown every single conception he had of what a date should be out of the water.

“I grew up in a very religious household,” he explained to her. “When I was nineteen years old or so, my younger brother, Samandriel, he… he passed due to an illness and I had a bit of a crisis of faith. Also a mental breakdown that ended with me in psychiatric ward for a few weeks.”

Meg’s eyes became wider, but if she had opinion about what he’d just confessed, she didn’t express it out loud.

“While I was there, there was a garden that was frequently visited by bumblebees. Sometimes, when it felt that it was too loud in my head, I just liked to sit outside and watch them working and buzzing. Gabriel, another one of my brothers, he noticed my interest for them and brought me a book about them. I don’t think it was meant to be a serious gift, as Gabriel has always been quite the jester. He knew I was studying art and science was never really my strongest point. But there wasn’t much else to do in the ward, so I ended up devouring it.” He tapped his fingers against the bottle, wondering if he really was talking too much. “Did you know bees fly in specific patterns to signal different messages to each other?”

“I think I might have heard it mention it in some nature documentary,” Meg replied. She sounded a bit hesitant, as if she wasn’t sure where Castiel was going with all of this.

“I didn’t know. I found it fascinating, that such small creatures with such fragile, brief lives could create such complex messages, that they could establish such order for themselves. So when I observed them from the on, I tried to follow them with my eyes and figured out the pattern. Many times I thought all I was seeing was chaos and I started doubting these scientist had got it right or maybe these particular bees didn’t fly like the rest of the bees in the world.”

He chuckled to himself, and even though Meg probably didn’t get the joke, she laughed as well.

“But then, one day, right before I left the ward… I saw it. And I swear, it was like an epiphany of sorts. Like finding the missing piece in a puzzle. I saw, for a moment, that there was an order to everything, a reason. Even if we humans aren’t able to comprehend it, it’s there. It was… it was a consoling thought. I wouldn’t say I went back to believing in God, not the way I had before, but… every time I feel myself slipping into despair, I think of the bees. I think of how maybe what looks like chaos to us… it makes sense to someone.”

Meg stared at him in silence for a very long time.

“That’s beautiful, Castiel,” she told him in the end. “I mean, it’s a load of crap, but it’s beautiful.”

Castiel laughed loudly. Only she could get away with insulting his beliefs and still being so charming while doing so.

“So you don’t believe in a higher power?”

“No. I believe in humans. I believe humans do awful shit and sometimes good things, and some of them use the concept of God as a security blanket not to assume that fact.” She took a swig of her beer as to punctuate that sentence. “I believe that you are only the things you do and that it’s up to you to find a reason to get up in the morning. You can’t sit around and wait for someone to give it to you.” She stopped herself and threw him a nervous glance. “I mean… I don’t mean to say that you…”

“I agree with you,” Castiel interrupted her before she could go on. “I don’t believe all these people saying that God chose them or passed a command unto them. Some of them might genuinely believe it themselves, but most of them are trying to scam people for their savings; I’ve seen it far too often. I don’t think we can know or understand what we call ‘God’, so it’s useless to try at all. We should just… live our lives, try to make the best of it. And don’t worry about the rest.”

“So God exists, but you don’t think he has a saying in what ultimately happens to you,” Meg summarized. She nodded, apparently more at ease with that idea. “I like that.”

Castiel didn’t realized how close her hand had slid to his on the counter until her little finger grazed him. He startled and looked at her again, her big brown eyes fixed on him. She opens her mouth to say something, but suddenly Castiel feels a little uncomfortable.

No, that wasn’t it, he realized. He felt _too_ comfortable, sitting there drinking a beer with her. Now that they’d bypassed the utterly mind-numbing small talk, now that they were actually talking about deep things, what they thought of the universe and how it worked, now that she had seen his painting of the _Dancing Bees_ , now it was… it was easy. It was easy to look into her eyes and her mouth and let the moment get away from him.

He leaned back on the table and looked away from her.

“I should… I should get going.”

“Oh.” There was disappointment in her face and she makes no attempt to hide it. “Okay, sure.”

He picked his coat and held it in his hands, frowning. Meg stopped midway to the door.

“Is there something wrong?”

“It… it feels too light,” Castiel explained.

He rummaged through the pockets, laying what he found on them on the counter next to the empty bottle beers: his cellphone, his wallet, the bar’s check, his car keys. He looked at the entire collection, trying to figure out what was missing. It took him three seconds too long.

“My house keys,” he muttered, closing his eyes.

“Maybe you dropped them?”

She turned on the living room light, but after half an hour staring at the floor, they were unable to find them.

“Perhaps they’re in my car,” Castiel said.

“Yeah, maybe. And maybe you left them at the gallery, which you don’t have the keys of on you right now,” Meg pointed out.

Castiel gritted his teeth. He hadn’t considered that. His other option was driving to Balthazar’s house, get him to open and help him search for them. That plan had no guarantee of working: it was late, it was cold and Balthazar was a good friend, but he would be very peeved at having to leave his house again under those conditions.

“Cas.” Meg put a hand on his forearm, halting all those thoughts at once. “I think you should stay here tonight.”

She was right, of course.

“Thank you,” he said, smiling at her. “Yes, that sounds like the most sensible solution. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time I sleep on your cou…”

The word died in his lips when Meg’s mouth crashed against his. The kiss took him by surprise, paralyzed him completely, and it was so brief his mind was still raging when she moved back. Her smile brimmed with satisfaction and her eyes were bright and playful.

“Would you really rather take the couch?”

He only had a few seconds, he realized, only a few seconds before he remembered all the reasons he was keeping her at arm’s length. He decided to take advantage of them: he lassoed Meg’s waist and lifted her up just a few inches so she could sit comfortable over the isle and reach his mouth. She put her arms around his neck and this time there was nothing hesitant about the way she kissed him, her tongue making way into his mouth fast. She tasted like alcohol and peanuts, something spicy and strange and Castiel took a step forwards to her to try to take it all in. His stomach crushed against her knees, knocking the air out of him and making him bite her lower lip. Meg broke the kiss and giggled softly, opening her legs so he could stand closer to her more comfortably.

But by then, Castiel’s common sense had caught up with him and he didn’t rush to meet her when she lifted her face to him, waiting for another kiss.

She noticed immediately.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

Castiel looked at her attentively. His heart fluttered, but not fast enough to alleviate the sudden pressure in his chest.

“You are so beautiful,” he told her. “And funny, and smart and just… there’s so much I want to know about you.”

“Why do I sense a ‘but’ coming?” Meg cocked her head.

“I’m not ready,” Castiel said. It felt so good to finally say it out loud, to finally admit it after he had been trying to force the situation for so long. “It’s too soon. I thought if I… got back on the horse, as everyone keeps encouraging me to do, it would somehow… but I’m just… not ready for another relationship.”

“Okay.” Meg nodded. She made no attempt of shaking his hands off her hips or getting down the counter, she didn’t accuse him of making her waste her time or anything of the sort. She simply pursed her lips as if expecting another kiss.

Castiel was frozen in his spot.

“O… kay…?”

“Cas, come on. I have eyes.” Meg rolled them, perhaps to illustrate her point. “It’s okay. We can be friends with benefits or whatever you want to call it. It’s not like I’m expecting you to propose to me tomorrow.”

She put her hand on the back of his head as if she wanted him to push him down to continue with what they were doing, but he didn’t react right away.

“Are you… are you sure you’re fine with this?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Meg said with a chuckle, but then she got serious: “Are _you_ okay with it?”

That question took some serious consideration. Whenever he met someone he liked, he either befriended them or dated them. He didn’t know how to exist in this in-between Meg was proposing.

“How would it work?”

“Well, we do what we did tonight,” Meg explains, her hand rubbing up and down his arm distractedly. “We go out for drinks, have a little chat… come back here and do whatever we want…”

“So… it would be like a relationship… except we wouldn’t be calling it that.” He frowned. He wasn’t completely sold on the idea.

“Yeah.” Meg shrugged. “Unless you want some extra rules? Do you want us to also see other people, have a regular day when we meet or something?” Her hand stopped suddenly. “You know, it was just a suggestion. If you want us to talk about this and then sleep on the couch anyway, that’s okay, too.”

The pressure in Castiel’s chest had disappeared, though he couldn’t say exactly when. Something about the way that she was willing to back off, to wait for him and give him his space, just filled him up with a tenderness that he hadn’t felt in a very long time.

Perhaps that was why he kissed her again and hushed the noise rattling in the back of his brain. All of his worries and fears didn’t seem as big an obstacle when she was willing to wait for him to sort them out.

“I think… maybe we should talk about the rules in the morning,” he suggested.

Meg’s grin was almost wicked in the soft kitchen’s light.

“Good choice.”

 

* * *

 

His cellphone ringing and a loud, whiny groan woke him up the next morning. Castiel opened his eyes to see that Meg had rolled away to the other side of the bed in her sleep. She was moving, but only to pull the blankets over her head and sink her face further into the pillow.

“Good morning,” Castiel tried to say.

“It’s Saturday and my day off,” she complained. “I shouldn’t have to see the morning _at all_.”

So she was grumpy in the mornings and she liked to get up late. There were only more and more things that he was learning about her. He smiled and left a kiss on the soft flesh of her back before getting up from the bed and fishing his boxers from the floor. The morning was chilly to be walking around with so little clothes, but with the warm of the sheets and the smell of Meg’s skin still clinging to his, Castiel was simply too elated to care.

He’d let his cellphone on the kitchen counter along with all his other belongings. He didn’t reach it in time to answer the call, but it started ringing again soon enough. He answered it quickly so to not disturb Meg’s further.

“Hello?”

“Your house keys somehow ended up in my possession,” Balthazar said, not even stopping to wish good morning to him. “What a completely random happenstance.”

The events of last night flashed through Castiel’s mind. When Balthazar had said goodbye to them, he had grabbed him by the arm and leaned very close. Castiel had assumed Balthazar just wanted to tell him privately what he thought of Meg, but now…

“Did you pickpocket me?”

“Of course not! I am shocked and aghast that would think such a thing of me, dearest friend!” Balthazar replied. His outraged tone didn’t fool Castiel for a second, but he didn’t have time to protest: “But anyway, you can drop by my house for lunch and tell me all about how the rest of your night went with the adorable Meg. Ta, ta.”

Castiel stared at his phone. He should be mad at Balthazar for interfering like that. But at the same time…

Meg walked into the kitchen, rubbing her eyes and wearing only his shirt. She was short enough that it only covered her to the thighs, giving Castiel an excellent view of her long, shapely legs.

“Well, I’m up,” she commented, though she didn’t sound happy about that fact at all. “Do you want to take a quick shower and go for breakfast?”

“I’d love that.” Castiel smiled.

Everything happened for a reason, after all.


End file.
